Jane Stillwater is a freelance journalist, war correspondent, blogger, political Cassandra and author of "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," now available on Amazon.com. Her latest motto is "Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world."

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Spoiled brats: How neo-con kiddies demand their Second Amendment rights but refuse to obey the rest of the ConstitutionHow come so many right-wingers, neo-cons,
corporate RepubliDems, NRA lobbyists, Fox News
commentators and radical-extremist talk-show hosts are currently getting all up in our faces about how wonderful the Second Amendment is? "Second Amendment! Second Amendment!" they cry night and day. That's all we ever hear from
these guys. You would think that they might occasionally mention the rest of the Constitution occasionally as well -- but no.

Right-wingers, gun lobbyists, Tea Party congressmen and corporatist-owned radio talk-show hosts all scream and yell and hold their breath and throw temper tantrums about the sanctity of the Second Amendment constantly. But have they ever thrown tantrums or held their breath when other parts of our Constitution were violently stepped on -- especially by they themselves? Er, no.

Where were these spoiled brats when George W. Bush trampled all over
our Constitution and forced several illegal wars down our
throats? Silent as the tomb.

Did these spoiled brats ever throw themselves down on the sidewalk and wail and flail around violently when the PATRIOT Act gutted so many of our sacred rights as citizens? No, no, no and no. Nary a peep from the right wing noise
machine.The Constitution begins with "We the People..." But you never hear any right-winger ever bitch and moan about how America is now run by "We theCorporations...." Right-wingers, the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, John Boehner, etc. apparently have never met a corporationthey didn't like. "Corporations are people!" they always cry. And what about the rest of us? Chopped liver? "Pretty much."

Section 2, paragraph 1 of the U.S.
Constitution states that, "The executive power shall be vested in a
President of the United States of America." George W. Bush used that
clause again and again to mire our country in the quicksand of trillions
of dollars
of debt, and not one right-winger anywhere seemed to even notice that
our George had illegally used presidential executive privilege
-- let alone voice any objection to its misuse. We never heard any
protests at all from the Tea Party, the NRA, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News,
Grover Norquist or any of those guys. GWB was using executive powers to
benefit the wealthy 1% but not the rest of us? Fine with them!

And speaking of GWB, doesn't the Constitution also state somewhere that
you gotta be elected before you can live in the White House? Bush was never elected. Both the 2000 election and the 2004 election were blatantly stolen. But there's been no outcry from any right-winger about that. Hell, Anton Scalia didn't even seem to mind. And neither did AIPAC or
CPAC. What's with that?

And what about our First Amendment rights such as "Freedom of Speech"? You never ev-ah hear right-wingers' strident voices raised in hue and crywhenever ordinary people like us arearrested and beaten for practicing free speech. "Freedom of Religion". Worth fighting for? Yeah
sure -- as long as it only includes some
kind of weird slash-and-burn Wall Street and War Street version of "Christianity" that wingers go nuts over and that Jesus would have abhorred.

And what about protecting Native Americans' freedom of religion too? That the land itself is considered sacred? No freedom there. "Just shut up, stop whining and let the Great White Father shove histar-sands pipeline up yourthroat."

I'm not even going to mention Muslims' freedom of religion. For right-wingers, it simply doesn't exist.And
what about the 19th Amendment, which dares to speak out
against involuntary servitude?Neo-con spoiled brats have no issues with this one -- just as long as we allow them to keep their prison labor system of involuntary servitude going. And their involuntary sweatshops in Asia and Haiti that have stolen our jobs. And sleazy American factories that keep their doors locked even when there is a fire. And those
thousands of WalMart workers who aren't allowed to organize or demand a
decent wage or respect? Does that count as involuntary servitude too? Apparently not.

And
what about "Freedom of the Press"? Are right-wingers defending itat all? Hell no. Just ask WikiLeaks's founder about that one -- or even the New York Times.
It seems that if you ever even dare to publish
anything in America that goes against Wall Street and War Street, you
end up either fired or in jail. Like Bradley Manning for instance. No
right-wing temper tantrums or
breath-holding over him. The only exception to this rule is when the neo-con media darlings on talk-radio or Fox News get called out on their lies.
Then right-wing spoiled brats really do start holding their breath.

Amendment Four? No illegal search and seizure? Violating this one is the rightwing's sweetest dream. "Gotta protect the Homeland!" they cry -- apparently protecting it from We the People.

Amendment Six? "Right to a speedy and public trial." You never hear right-wingers throw a fit about this one either -- only about their treasured Second Amendment.

But theseparticularcruel and unusual things are all happening to foreign nationals, not us. However,
even when horrible things like
that happen right here at home too, right-wing spoiled
brats still don't even care. "Bradley Manning? Leonard Peltier? The
Cuban Five? Lynne Stewart? Chris Williams and other legal medical marijuana growers and dispensers? Martin Luther King Jr?" Yawn.

I could go on and on
about all the parts of the U.S. Constitution the right-wing has happily
gutted over the last several decades. But you get the gist. For them,
only the Second Amendment counts.

But I have an important question here to ask "We the People" of America
regarding the right wing's constant spoiled-brat behavior. "At what point do all these temper tantrums and breath-holdings get old?"

When do "We the Parents" finally put our foot down, stand up for our own selves
and send
spoiled-brat Wall Street and War Street and Wrong-Wing Street and Wreck-the-Constitution
Street off to bed without any
supper? Apparently never.

****************************************************************************************************************** Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and
illegal) corporatist ball-busting
socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can
to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my
current alternate-economy schemes that never
seem to work -- but I keep hoping!******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti
ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be
postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks. And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer, "Have laptop, will travel!"

******Need
someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what
needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in
Washington!)

****Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all
kinds of older women -- from judges,
business execs and other insane zombies to bag
ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and
dying patients in rest homes. I've played them
all. So send me a script and let's do this.
Hollywood, here we come!****Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com
and I'll stamp your
document, make it official and only
charge $10. Of course if you live
outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge
travel expenses -- but am well worth
it!

I
also wrote a book
about going on Hajj (also included
as a chapter in "Bring
Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book
is cheaper -- but it's
worth buying them both!) My book
on the Hajj is so outstanding
that I bet even Christian
fundamentalists will love it! Please
buy it here:http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product****"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with
this logo
printed on them. They make great
gifts, especially for those
of us who are still idealists in
these troubled times. To
purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

Monday, January 21, 2013

In honor of Martin Luther King's birthday this year, I treated myself to a movie marathon, watching "Django Unchained" and "Zero Dark 30" back-to-back. And it was like a cold slap in the face.

"Django Unchained" allegedly took place in 1858 -- and here we
are now, 160 years later, where things have apparently changed and we're now being all civilized with our I-phones and our
electric cars and our digital TVs. Nobody enslaves "colored" people
any more and tortures them like that any more, right? This is the 21st century!

No one ties "colored" people up with ropes and beats
them and beats them and beats them and then sics dogs on them any more,
right? That's barbaric. That's why Lincoln freed the slaves and Dr.
King marched in Montgomery, right? What happened to Django was old
skool.

When
the theater screen darkens, suddenly here we are again, right here in
the 21st century, but still tying up "colored" people with ropes,
beating them and beating them and then siccing dogs on them.

"Hey, but that's different," you might say. In what way?

In "Django Unchained," we saw a man have all that he owned taken from him -- simply because he wasn't White -- and then we saw him beaten and tortured when he fought back against the Master.

In "Zero Dark 30" we also see the end results of years and years of
"colored" folks in the Middle
East having everything taken from them by the Master too -- and then
when they too fought back, they too got beaten and tortured.

So how come we cheer Django Freeman on but hate Osama bin Ladin? Both are "colored" men fighting for their very lives.

But I digress.

This commentary is not about whether bin Ladin was or was not a good
guy. Obviously he was a bad guy -- even making his wives do his laundry
by hand, according to "0D30". Wouldn't even buy them a washer and dryer.

This commentary is about how far Americans have progressed, between 1858 and now, along the path to moral evolution. Not an inch.

In 1858 we had Candyland, where Leonardo di Caprio's character used
torture to maintain his power over people of color who rebelled against
their own exploitation.

And now, 160 years later, we have the CIA instead --
with
Jessica Chastain's character using torture to maintain her power over
people of color who rebelled against their own exploitation.

On this MLK birthday celebration, however, I was only filled with despair.

****************************************************************************************************************** Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and
illegal) corporatist ball-busting
socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can
to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my
current alternate-economy schemes that never
seem to work -- but I keep hoping!******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti
ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be
postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks. And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer, "Have laptop, will travel!"

******Need
someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what
needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in
Washington!)

****Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all
kinds of older women -- from judges,
business execs and other insane zombies to bag
ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and
dying patients in rest homes. I've played them
all. So send me a script and let's do this.
Hollywood, here we come!****Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com
and I'll stamp your
document, make it official and only
charge $10. Of course if you live
outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge
travel expenses -- but am well worth
it!

I
also wrote a book
about going on Hajj (also included
as a chapter in "Bring
Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book
is cheaper -- but it's
worth buying them both!) My book
on the Hajj is so outstanding
that I bet even Christian
fundamentalists will love it! Please
buy it here:http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product****"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with
this logo
printed on them. They make great
gifts, especially for those
of us who are still idealists in
these troubled times. To
purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

In your face: Homelessness in America And what are YOU doing about the vast new epidemic of homeless people flooding the streets of America right now?

America's wealthiest 1% are doing something about
it -- they're creating even more homeless men and women just as fast as they possibly can!

The Department of Defense is doing something about this problem too, creating vast brigades and armies of blind, paralyzed, traumatized and/or limbless disabled 20-somethings who should have been in their prime of life right now, the backbone of America's labor force -- but are instead sleeping rough, out on the streets.

The CIA, DEA, FBI, local police forces, INS, Homeland Security, TSA, etc. are also doing their bit regarding homelessness here as well -- they are housing Americans in jails just as fast as humanly possible, with or without being charged with a crime. How patriotic is that!
And you can even get thrown in a jail cell for
using legal medical marijuana or driving an unregistered car (or being
homeless). The vast American prison-labor system is
always here to help out.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development
is also doing something about homelessness in America too -- by
actually supplying housing. Imagine that. And if HUD closed its doors
tomorrow, America would immediately reveal its true self -- as Great-Depression-style tent cities begin springing up like mushrooms and we start tripping over the dead bodies of homeless senior citizens left and right. Without HUD, America would look like background shots from the movie "Les Miserables".

But what am I myself doing about homelessness in America today? Besides giving an occasional dollar to a street person shivering out in the cold? Obviously not enough. (But I did act in a docu-drama on the subject recently. Does that count? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2cTACN-iNA)

Can you imagine what it is like to stay out all night, every night, in the rain and the cold, vulnerable to criminals and rapists, being humiliated, vilified and scorned by those lucky enough not to have been chewed up and spit out by Wall Street and War
Street quite yet, shamefully begging for spare change and having no place to go? I can't.

If it was me out there on those mean streets, I'd be lucky to still be alive after
only a
week.PS: Speaking of being homeless, I will be going to Haiti as part of a Global Exchange delegation at the end of
March to do research on homelessness there. No other country in the western
hemisphere has as many homeless people as Haiti -- even though it is
still being milked like a cash cow by the world's NGOs.

According to journalist Bill
Quigley, "Despite billions in aid which were supposed to go to the
Haitian
people, hundreds of thousands are still homeless, living in shanty tent
camps as the effects from the earthquake of January 12, 2010 remain.
The earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010 killing, according to
Oxfam International, 250,000 people and injuring another 300,000.
360,000 Haitians are still displaced and living hand to mouth in 496
tent camps across the country according to the International
Organization of Migration. Most eat only one meal a day." http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-quigley/47484/how-the-international-community-failed-haiti

And you think that America's homeless won't fare any better than Haiti's homeless if the 1% have their way? Think again. Just remember all those homeless Americans created by Hurricane Sandy -- who are still homeless now. And then thank whichever God that you pretend to follow that it wasn't you living out there in Far Rockaway.

And when the 1% finally get their hands on your Social Security money pot like they have been trying to all along, you won't need a hurricane to know which way the wind blowseither.

****************************************************************************************************************** Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and
illegal) corporatist ball-busting
socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can
to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my
current alternate-economy schemes that never
seem to work -- but I keep hoping!******

What next? I'm still trying to get to Haiti
ASAP but unfortunately my investigative-reporting trip has had to be
postponed until the end of March. Please donate toward my trip's expenses here if you can:https://www.wepay.com/donations/going-to-a-vodou-cave-in-haiti And if this link doesn't work, please just cut and paste. Thanks. And if anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer, "Have laptop, will travel!"

******Need
someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what
needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in
Washington!)

****Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie? Then I'm your man! I can portray all
kinds of older women -- from judges,
business execs and other insane zombies to bag
ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and
dying patients in rest homes. I've played them
all. So send me a script and let's do this.
Hollywood, here we come!****Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.****

I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com
and I'll stamp your
document, make it official and only
charge $10. Of course if you live
outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge
travel expenses -- but am well worth
it!

I
also wrote a book
about going on Hajj (also included
as a chapter in "Bring
Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book
is cheaper -- but it's
worth buying them both!) My book
on the Hajj is so outstanding
that I bet even Christian
fundamentalists will love it! Please
buy it here:http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product****"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with
this logo
printed on them. They make great
gifts, especially for those
of us who are still idealists in
these troubled times. To
purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters